(6dr) Hydrothermal Technologies for Valorizing Biomass and Producing Valued-Added Chemicals

Research Interests:

I am interested in exploring hydrothermal technologies for synthesizing industrially attractive chemicals, degrading environmentally harmful pollutants, and valorizing biomass or organic wastes into fuels, fertilizers, and novel bio-derived materials. Hydrothermal technologies use water at elevated temperatures and pressure and offer environmentally benign routes for chemical processing. The properties of hydrothermal media deviate from those of ambient water and can be ‘tuned’ to create unique reaction environments. For instance, pressurized water heated to temperatures above its boiling point, yet kept below its critical temperature, forms a hot, compressed-liquid phase that effectively solvates organic molecules and promotes acid- and base-catalyzed reactions. Furthermore, at temperatures and pressures exceeding its critical point, water forms a supercritical fluid that supports free-radical chemical reactions. The tunable properties of hydrothermal media can provide reaction environments capable of supporting diverse applications ranging from organic synthesis, converting biomass into bio-crude oils, or gasifying organic wastes into fuel gases. My research will explore the applications of hydrothermal technologies for providing solutions for environmental remediation, sustainable fuel production, and synthesis of chemical from renewable resources.

Research Experiences:

My PhD research has been combined approach of experimental work and kinetic modeling for investigating the conversion of proteinaceous biomass in hydrothermal media. Initial projects investigated the use of sub- and supercritical water for converting model proteins into bio-crude oils and nutrients. Kinetic models were developed for correlating the experimental data and identified optimal operating conditions for producing bio-crude oils and recovering nutrient enriched aqueous-phase products. Similarly, I developed kinetic models for investigating the influence of the biochemical composition of microalgae on resultant yields of bio-crude oil product yields. Additionally, I performed fundamental experimental studies for investigating the influence of pH on the hydrothermal reaction pathways of peptides. The experimental results were evaluated with thermodynamic and chemical kinetic models to elucidate the effects of the dissociation states of peptides on their reaction rates and selectivity. This complementary approach of thermodynamic and chemical kinetic modeling provided a framework for understanding the influence of the properties of hydrothermal environments on chemical reactions. This approach could be used for tailoring the properties of hydrothermal media for unique green chemistry applications. Further, I received training in statistical and chemical kinetic modeling of batch reactor kinetics during an industrial summer internship.

Teaching Interests:

My teaching interests include core chemical engineering courses such as reaction engineering, heat transfer, and mass and energy balances. I have further interests in developing curricula for elective courses in chemical kinetic modeling and introduction to computing environments (e.g., Mathematica, Matlab) tailored for chemical engineering undergraduates.

Teaching Experiences:

During my academic tenure, I have enjoyed participating in several teaching experiences. As an undergraduate chemical engineering student at the Illinois Institute of Technology, I was employed as a tutor at the Academic Resource Center and provided tutoring in thermodynamics, transport phenomena, reaction engineering, and process modeling and my work garnered a tutoring award. The summer after graduating from IIT, I was hired by After School Matters as a STEM Instructor and developed and instructed a sustainable energy management course for 23 high school students with backgrounds under-represented in STEM related fields. As a PhD student at Penn State, I have served as a teaching assistant for CHE 430: Reaction Engineering. As a TA, I created interactive Mathematica notebooks for enhancing lectures, tutored students on modeling chemical reactions and sizing reactors with computing software (e.g., Matlab, Mathematica) and gave lectures on differential and integral reactors and multiple reactions in continuous reactors. In addition, I have been a Teaching Fellow under the mentorship of Professor Ali Borhan for CHE 350: Process Heat Transfer. As a Teaching Fellow I developed midterm and final exam reviews, provided class lectures on solving example problems, and closely mentored students working on honors projects in which students had to apply numerical methods for simulating 2-dimensional conductive heat transfer on solid surfaces.